MoveOn’s 2024 Election Program Recap
MoveOn’s 2024 Election Program launched during our 25th Anniversary Summit in October of 2023—the earliest MoveOn had ever launched an election program. From the very beginning, we understood the challenges of engaging a complex electorate.
That’s why we set out to engage 1.5 million targeted voters in 65 House and Senate districts and 13 key presidential states.
As of this publishing date, we won 38 of our endorsed races, helped curb abortion bans by supporting ballot measures protecting reproductive freedom in Nevada and Arizona, and defeated MAGA Republicans in the Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin U.S. Senate races.
Here’s a look at the top-line accomplishments of our 2024 electoral program:
This election cycle, MoveOn …
- Reached out to our targeted voters more than 4.2 million times via phone banks, text banks, community canvasses, and postcards
- Organized over 15k volunteers, who participated in 12k shifts
- Created persuasive ads that were seen more than 84 million times
- Launched the #ScoopTheVote ice cream truck tour and shared thousands of Harris-inspired free scoops of ice cream, generating more than 20,000 voting reminders
- Hosted more than 500 events, including voter contact house parties, convention watch parties, and debate watch parties
- Endorsed 65 candidates for federal office and supported ballot initiatives in NV, FL, and AZ aimed at fighting back against abortion bans
- Was mentioned in 12,000 news articles across 35 states
- Engaged more than 42 million people across all social media channels with election-related content
- Generated more than 390,000 voting reminders during the final weeks of the election cycle, via relational vote tripling
- Held three GOTV livestreams with the likes of Mark Ruffalo, Ben and Jerry, Shonda Rhimes, and the cast of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice”
The Strategy
Our election program was centered around our ability to turn out “surge voters”—newer and infrequent voters who participated in one out of the last three elections (2022, 2020, 2018.) We maximized MoveOn’s strengths by scaling the participation of our millions of members across the country and activating our extensive reach with multifaceted infrastructure to connect with voters through traditional and new mediums. Using our data-driven and scientific approach, we built machine learning models that helped us identify how to scale our volunteer base, reach surge voters, and where to drive impactful campaign interventions.
Energizing the Base, Persuading Unlikely Voters, and Getting Out the Vote
Energizing the Base
We built a massive community of more than 15,000 powerful progressive organizers, whom we call MoveOn Vote Mobilizers. These volunteers powered our election program by leading more than 500 events geared toward building community and by talking to key voters across the country.
The events ranged from direct voter contact “house parties” where folks came together to write postcards, call voters, or canvas their community, to events where they brought together local community members to watch debates and encourage participation in the election.
In addition, we also leveraged our Community Support Team, a group of MoveOn volunteer leaders who specialize in key projects, including research, event host support, training, and so much more.
Persuading Unlikely Voters
Surge voters, due to their infrequent nature of participation, need additional encouragement to turn out, but when they do vote, they historically vote for Democrats. We set out a game plan to persuade these voters by reaching them directly via voter contact methods at least three times and layering those attempts with targeted ads and earned media campaigns. Our goal was not only to convince them to go out and vote but also to ensure that they were going to vote for our candidates and persuade their friends and family to do the same.
Direct Voter Contact
First up: Vote Mobilizers led postcard parties that brought together community members and volunteers to compose handwritten appeals to surge voters asking them to support Democrats this election. We exceeded our goals by more than 200%, sending out more than 76,000 postcards to Surge Voters in key geographies.
Then, members launched phone-banking and canvassing house parties to reach out to surge voters, identifying their support for the Democratic ticket and issues that mattered most to them. The data collected using these voter contact methods would later inform our GOTV (get-out-the-vote) campaign down the road.
During the persuasion phase, we reached out to more than 565,000 surge voters via 200+ phone banks and canvasses.
Paid Media Campaigns (Ads)
MoveOn launched a seven-figure ad spend, running message-tested persuasive ads in battleground states that reached 1.6 million surge voters. Each ad featured issues like abortion and economic appeals that we found in testing and research motivated these voters. These ads were watched more than 84 million times.
We also recruited micro-influencers, social media content creators with a following of 10,000 to 100,000 followers, and ran a paid campaign that reached 580,000 additional voters, bringing the total number of voters targeted to more than 2.1 million voters across all paid media streams.
Earned Media
As a key thought leader in the progressive ecosystem, MoveOn sought to directly influence national narratives about the election. MoveOn appeared in more than 12,000 publications across 35 states this year.
Each of these tactics helped us get closer to achieving our goal of persuading surge voters to turn out for Democratic candidates. By layering our contacts with direct voter contact, as well as paid and earned media, we made a concerted effort to connect with these surge voters before vote-by-mail ballots dropped.
Getting Out the Vote (GOTV)
The GOTV phase is the final phase of the election cycle, typically encompassing the time period after the voter registration deadlines across the country. We did the hard work of reaching as many surge voters as possible, persuading them to vote for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, and then it was time to get them to actually cast their ballots.
Direct Voter Contact
Surge voters were called, texted, and canvassed in their community, underpinning the importance of not just voting for the Harris-Walz ticket but also voting for downballot Democrats and abortion ballot measures in states where this was an option.
We scaled up our phone-banking operation and made nearly 2.3 million calls, sent more than 1.2 million text messages, and generated more than 390,000 vote reminders in the last five weeks of the election cycle.
Throughout the entirety of our campaign, we reached out more than 4.2 million times to our voter universe through phone calls, texts, postcards, and community canvassing.
Earned Media
Our earned-media efforts were catalyzed through a partnership with Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield to launch a first-ever GOTV Scoop the Vote tour aiming to connect with young surge voters through free ice cream and joy.
While the truck was touring battleground states, people who were standing in line were able to check their voter registration and, if registered, triple their impact by reminding friends and family to vote. They could also volunteer with MoveOn. Overall, we served more than 4,000 scoops of ice cream and partnered with local ice cream vendors who also supported Kamala Harris and downballot Democrats.
We also collaborated with emoji artist Lauren Edelstein to post Vote for Kamala posters in 15 major cities across the country. These posters were seen by many and were posted widely on social media.
And in the final stretch of the election cycle, we partnered with celebrity superstars and elected officials on GOTV events. We held three virtual GOTV rallies, including the final one titled “Code Blue: Democracy” with Congressman Maxwell Frost, the cast of “Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice,” and the talented creator of these award-winning shows, Shonda Rhimes.
Battling Abortion Bans through the Support of Ballot Amendments in NV, AZ, and FL
Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, we saw it as important to throw down in battles against abortion bans. We supported ballot measures in Florida, Nevada, and Arizona that fought back against abortion bans.
In Nevada and Arizona, the abortion ballot measures passed, outpacing both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, earning 64% of the vote in the Silver State and 61.5% in the Grand Canyon State. We supported these abortion ballot measures by raising funds for the in-state coalitions Nevadans for Reproductive Freedom and Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom through direct fundraising, merch, and conducting member-driven phone banks urging voters in the state to support the ballot measures.
In Florida, despite the amendment failing to cross the 60% threshold needed to pass, Amendment 4 outpaced both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, underlining the popularity of reproductive rights in a state that went for Donald Trump by 13%. In support of Amendment 4, we ran phone banks and paid ads targeting 330,000 surge voters and reaching more than 4 million Floridians.
Reflections and the Path Forward
MoveOn set out to run an ambitious program to persuade, mobilize, and turn out surge voters. While we lost the White House, and are taking stock of how to adjust our strategy, we know that the work that we did played pivotal roles in the victories of key U.S. Senate races, U.S. House races, and abortion access ballot measures.
As the votes continue to be counted, we’re seeing Harris overperform Biden in vote total among the swing states—MoveOn’s election program targets. There will be more analysis to come as we assess our impact.
MoveOn continues to be at the forefront of the progressive ecosystem, experimenting and scaling transformative electoral programs cycle after cycle. We find ways to build on the work of previous years—work that would not be possible without the MoveOn members who power these programs, the Voter Mobilizer community, our Community Support Team, and our staff for carrying out such important work. Thank you for everything you do.
While the fight ahead continues to take shape, know that MoveOn isn’t going anywhere, and we will continue to funnel, nurture, and engage our new members and volunteers who will be key to defying and pushing back against Trump and MAGA extremists.
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